Saved the best for last. Thanks to Sun Mee for an awesome last-day-of-tour brunch at her place.

This is it Folks. Tonight. Uno mas. Home tomorrow.

Unless...

In other news apparently Tim has agreed to name his kid Bruce Springsteen.

Must've been one hell of a night.

Location:Ickstattstraße,Munich,Germany

Style is like religion and we've got both.

New York street meat ain't got a thing on these.

Location:Zweibrücken,Germany

Little Rheinfalls goofin' this afternoon -- three pairs!

We all had such a great time with Philipp and Sylvain in Winterthur that they also made the trek to play with us in Lucerne. There were some complications (see Tim's injury post below) that made it even more interesting than the other night.

You MUST check out their band: Pullup Orchestra

Much love to those dudes.

Feeling better oh friends and lovers...

Location:Dietenbachstraße,Freiburg im Breisgau,Germany

Passed on dropping 500 Swiss Francs at the ER to be told it's officially not broken, but that pinky finger was swollen like a Johnsonville Bratwurst two songs in. Things are gonna get interesting around here.

Team Sleep back on the road.




Location:Grudligen,Littau,Switzerland

Driving over the Alps in the daylight. Much better than our tradition of doing it at night.


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Big, big thanks to Philipp and Sylvain for playing last night near Zurich. What a great first Swiss show ever. Between the horns, the house-made shots and the best dinner of the tour yet, we're considering a three-week Switzerland-only tour.

We take issue with "soft indie". We take even greater issue with a flyer for a soft indie band that includes a punk chick popping a squat. Luckily, the awesome people of Saluzzo knew what to expect anyway.

This haunting piece greeted us in the bathroom of the B&B last night.

Last night was a bed & breakfast with a nonna who apologized for not speaking English because in Piemonte, "beautiful people speak French, no English". Yesterday's dinner was at an Italian version of a VFW hall, the clubhouse/cantina of a biocce league in wonderful Saluzzo. As we were filling up with XXXX and pasta, we were surprised by the staff bursting into the little dining room with a write-up for the show and a photo. They were pretty excited and I think we agreed that in exchange for us signing it, they would hang it on the wall next to the photo of this season's biocce champion. Pretty sure they're sending us a trophy too. Saluzzo's near Torino, in the middle of the huge, flat plain that's surrounded by mountains on three sides and Meditarraenean and the rest of the boot on the other. Got our mini one-hour vacation on the Riveria di Ponente yeseterday on the way from Genova. Perfect break at the half-way point of tour.

Dinner in Genova was at Maria's, a little shithole that's still serving Maria's 50 year-old recipes two years after she passed. Completely unmarked, dark even when you're in its little alley, but fantastic hospitaliano. Try the pesce con patate. All-in-all, Italy has been what it always seems to be on tour: slightly short on organization, record buyers, and English fluency but more than making up for it all in the friendliness, food, weather and wine.

Rick Steves couldn't touch this version of Europe with his three-foot bong.

Thank you Italy, you were gracious and warm as always. We're back online folks, and Switzerland you are indeed a sight to behold...

Good to be in Italy.

Location:Salita del Prione,Genoa,Italy

Not a lot of internet here in Italia. But that's a good thing.

Location:Via Giuseppe De Paoli,Genoa,Italy

Jesus Christmas, lots of firsts tonight. One: there's there's no right way to do this. Read into that for days, but I continue to be surprised at all the ways that art crosses commerce. People cross people; notes cross each other and sound guys from here to Poland sigh in unison when they see Curtes' piano. Now, where's my hotel room? Life is good and we'll manage, but the miles always pay off. I'll take that to the grave. The show tonight in Austria was all wine glasses and cougars. No judgement, just saying. We did our best, then took video of each other sliding across the floor backstage. Does anyone remember goddamn Jody Davis? Block that plate, Wilson. Look for visuals in a post tomorrow morning. Signing off for now.

Location:Weihermähder,Dornbirn,Austria

Or someone called ahead from Vienna.

Location:Farbergasse,Dornbirn,Austria

First, we wondered how Hannah got past security. Then we just felt bad when she asked which one of us was Thurston. Clearly a miscommunication on many fronts.

Resident parking only, apparently.

Spotted in Prague: the toughest, meanest NYPD merch out there.

Tim instinctively started slowly walking away from this girl until we reminded him that he didn't even bring his bike lock with him to Europe.

Location:Koliště,Černá Pole,Czech Republic

Europe is sooo boring. So we stopped by snowy Greece for a photo shoot. The country, err, this eyesore here was created in 1807 and you can see the Black Forrest from the front steps. Confused? And then we woke up in Prague.

Regensburg. It's 2000 years old. And it's where good old Sebastian is feeding us breakfast.

Got stopped by plainclothes cops at the Bavaria border today. Got some of it on camera but couldn't get sound so we filled in with subtitles. A strange experience...

Sound checking in Berlin right now. There's a pretty serious hole in stage left which will almost certainly lead to Jason breaking something. And then we'll be rich. Super rich.

No support last night, so it was an official evening with PS. We managed. New songs, slow dances, lots of hand holding and doe eyes. Then a metal bar after the dance for a much needed night cap. Lovely. We're still knocking off the dust of the live show, but things are sounding good. Always nice to see friends in Hamburg, play the Hafenklang, hang with Daniel. Always nice to read meandering mid-morning blog posts, isn't it? Cup of tea, a nice Erma Bombeck perhaps? There's Curtes rubbing Tim's feet. Yes. Heading to Berlin in the hour, then east.

Back to the UT. Retribution for PS. Stoked about the show last night. We played the same beautiful old theater a few years ago and the night was a quiet disaster. We talked to a few friends who said it wasn't so bad from what they remember, but still. Tim and I literally did an impromptu Q&A sitting on the stage, while MC fished nails out of his keyboard. It was that kind of night. So. Last? Solid as they come.

A public service announcement:
Kids, don't pack for tour when after a night at the bar.

Hi Mom. PS united safely on the other side. Funny how well you fall back into routines, vans, gear rental warehouses and angry label bosses. The first show in Halle last night was a last minute addition, but nice surprise. The venue felt like your average Brooklyn living/performance space. No surprise there. But with a wood-burning stove. It's always nice when you get a "tour first" this early. Here's Curtes chopping wood at 1am while the dance party rages in the former GDR. Enjoy.

Just two more days until Europe Tour starts. Busy busy with screening awesome new t-shirts, packing up Turf vinyl, picking up vegan souvenirs for our awesome driver, Rolf, etc.



And just last night we got a nice surprise on the door of the PS headquarters--an eviction notice. Apparently someone else hasn't been paying the rent that we've been paying to them every month and now the court is going to seize everything in their on Feb 16. Since we're going to be in Austria while they're padlocking the door, we got to add moving allll of our shit into a friend's room to the to-do list before we can leave. Good times!



Can. Not. Wait. To. Go!

This thing may have been a little quiet as we hunkered down and squeezed out the new record. But now that Turf out and breathing, there's more time for poetry.

Lots of stuff going on, with the biggest being that Turf is out. Selling it on ourselves for now, digitally on ps.com and on vinyl at the shows.



And we're headed to Europe tomorrow to say "hello" to our old friends and play some shows. Dates are also on ps.com. We'll be posting late night stories here, so stay tuned.